


Serendipity

by FudgingPastry



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Canon Disabled Character, Fluff, Humanstuck, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 02:32:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4902172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FudgingPastry/pseuds/FudgingPastry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamzee and Tavros grew up together as kids, but Tavros moved away at the end of their freshman year of high school. When Gamzee goes to college, though, they meet a very familiar face. Based on a prompt written by Idefix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serendipity

The day he tells you, you feel your heart stop and drop about six feet under your feet. You two are sitting under the big tree you’ve spent most your life under. The two of you have sat here in snow, rain, fog, and sun so bright you swear you’d go blind. Sometimes the picnic table is there; sometimes it’s not. Half the time it’s there, the damn thing is upside down. You could’ve sworn that it somehow managed to get in the lowest branches once in that huge windstorm three years ago.

“Yeah, it, uh, sucks,” he shrugs, his eyes lowered as he traces the names you carved into the wood last year. _Tavros and Gamzee, forever bros_ the carving reads and your heart sinks lower. Your hands twitch to hold on to his or to wrap your arms around him or…

Or to do something other than ask him how far away he’s moving. Your voice cracks on the end of your question and you wince. You clear it to start over, but he starts speaking over you.

“All the way on the other, side of the country.” He huffs and crosses his arms. He scoots back so he can rest his head on his arms. “I’ll be leaving this, summer. Right after school ends and,”

“Motherfucker,” you groan, your head resting in your hand, your face all kinds of frowns.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

You help him into his wheelchair and you two make promises to stay in touch with each other, no matter what. The rest of freshman year is bittersweet both of you knowing what’s gonna happen at the end of the year, but hell if you’re not going to make the most of it. You two get into the games club at school and he beats everyone at least twice. You watch and cheer on in the background. You join in with the cheerleaders and he watches you from the stands at games. He even comes down to where you sit and jokes around with the band while they wait for their turn. You go to all the dances you possibly can together. You bump hips and laugh and part of you yearns to hold him when the slow songs come on. You spend as much time as you possibly can together and every so often, your hand twitches to wrap around his and you want to tell him _so much_ about how you feel about him, but you never get the chance.

The last day of school happens and while most of the school talks about fun summer plans, you and Tavros return to the tree and just… sit there. You enjoy each other’s company. You sit shoulder to shoulder and crack jokes. You rap a little, but there’s just that hint of sadness for the next day. You sit with him until it gets dark and you’re pretty sure something bit your ass as you walk him home.

“See you tomorrow, bro?” You ask, trying so hard to smile. He nods and hugs you tightly and then goes through the door and you’re left all alone. You walk home alone and run to your bed and cry until your chest hurts and your eyes are red. You don’t sleep well that night and by the time the sunlight reaches through your curtains, you’re already out of bed and running off to say goodbye to Tavros.

You catch him right before he’s about to leave. You nearly slam into the car in your rush, skidding to a stop as he reaches out for the door.

“Tavros!” You shouted and he stops, staring wide-eyed at you. “I,” you start, your mouth catching on the words you want to say. They all rush up at you and you almost start babbling, but he reaches out and pulls you halfway into the car so he can hug you. You squeeze him so hard he coughs and you start crying. You’re going to call him every day and visit him whenever you can and you’ll always be bros and you tell him all that. He tells the same to you and you almost tell him how you feel, but instead you say, “I’m gonna fucking miss you, bro.”

“I’m going to miss you too, Gamzee.” You hug him tightly one more time and then you drag yourself out of the car and watch as they drive away. Your chest feels tight and you raise up your hand in a wave, wishing you still had him here with you.

You talk to him sometimes. You start off well enough, talking every day like you planned. You tell him all the gossip the cheerleaders share with you. He tells you about how the cafeteria is too loud and how he misses the corner you two ate at every day. He tells you about how the team is very good and the games aren’t much fun. You tell him about how you got into detention the other day. When he asks why, you shrug and forget he can’t see you. It makes the hurt of him leaving grow even more and you start to cry.

Eventually, life gets too busy and talking to him happens less and less. He goes off to chess championships and you take too many art classes all at once. He gets a new friend group and you find a couple people you enjoy. You slowly lose contact with him and there’s some part of you that accepts it. Especially when you find out through Facebook that he’s dating someone. She’s really pretty and you have to admit that they look cute together. You tell him so and pretend that there’s not that small part of you that wishes he was yours. Finally, you stop talking altogether and you’re faced with a new challenge: college.

Your first year starts with a bang. As in the door bangs open and scares you shitless and you nearly fall off the lofted bed you were making with a yelp. The person who comes in stops at the sight of you hanging half on the bed and half on the ladder. They squint and then introduce themself as Karkat.

“Gamzee, bro. You got some pronouns you like to use?” He screws up his face, a little confused, but answers with a curt “he.” You nod and smile lopsided. Your side is starting to hurt, but you don’t think you can dislodge yourself without falling to the ground.

“Do you need help down?” he asks, setting his stuff on the ground. He walks over to you and kind of holds you up while you manage to not be hanging off the ladder. You try to get up, smack your head against the ceiling, and lose your grip. You fall into him and he goes down cursing. When the two of you finally get off each other and back on your feet, you shake hands and figure out that you’re roommates.

You figure out a lot of stuff about Karkat that first semester. You learn about how he loves all things romantic, but couldn’t care less about the love interest in whatever movie fucking the main character. He makes you sit through his movies and cries into your shoulder about scenes he’s seen a hundred times before. You let him and you draw in your sketchbook. You learn about how he can’t sleep without a shirt on and how he can sleep through almost anything. (You watched the RA take a sledgehammer to your door during a fire alarm at least twice.) You learn a little about how difficult his classes are and you take him to art galleries sometime and you learn that it calms him a little, being in a place that’s all quiet and hushed. You sit close to him those times and you remember Tavros a little.

Your first year is tough, but it helps to have Karkat close. It was awkward the first time he found you under a blanket and crying about an exam you had the next day. He patted your shoulder and let you hug him and cry into his chest. You returned the favor soon enough (finals are hell, you realize) when you crawl onto the futon with him and hold him when he rants about his group and the girl he likes and the guy in his programming class that he just can’t stand.

The spring semester goes by quickly and you and Karkat are registering for classes for the next year. You peek over his shoulder once and grimace.

“Fuck those classes brother. I ain’t got the understandin’ to be dealing with that kind of stuff.”

“It’s only statistics, you numbskull.”

“Exactly,” you groan. Books in your bag and you’re out the door for class. You bound down the stairs – all five floors down – and swing out the door and almost slam into someone. You spin out of their way before you do, but you hear a quiet voice gasp and a string of apologies in a faltering way of speaking that makes you pause for just a second. When you turn back to take a look at them, there’s no one there but the quickly closing door. It wouldn’t be… right? You shrug and go about the rest your day with a twinge of wonder.

Your second year starts off weird. Weird being that somehow the paperwork for you and Karkat rooming together got mixed up and you were put into different rooms. Thankfully, Karkat’s only a floor below you. You can visit him any time you need him. You met his roommate and had to stifle a laugh when you realized it was that guy from his programming class. When you left their room, they were glaring at each other from different sides of the room. Maybe he’ll be able to help Karkat with his statistics. You groan at the thought of all that math and open the door to your new room.

Looks like your roommate is already in the room, setting things up. You look over them, trying to tell from a glance if they’re friendly or not (you really hope they are. You’ve heard horror stories about bad roommates). They look nice if… a little familiar? You get the feeling you should know them from somewhere. You shrug it off and assume you saw them somewhere on campus last year.

“Hey. Guess we’re roomies this year, eh brother?” You venture and they look up at you and…

Oh no, they’re hot.

“Yeah, I suppose that we are.” He smiles and it takes you a couple times to swallow. When did your mouth go so dry? Do you still have that water with you? You look around your stuff, chewing your lip nervously when you don’t see it. You look back at him and feel your face go hot. Like him. He’s, oh hell he’s hot.

You lick your lips and try not to look like a fool.

“Oh, so, uh, introductions would probably be the, next step? In this first meeting of being, roommates.” He starts, holding out his hand. “I’m, uh, Tavros. Nice to meet you.” You start to hold out your hand and then freeze. Your heart stops for a second and then starts racing when you look him over again and now you see some of the boy you once knew. You see the parts of him you last saw over four years ago and you can see some parts that definitely weren’t there before.

“Uh?” He starts and you lick your lips again, a hand on your arm as you try to get your words out past the sudden tightness of your throat.

“It’s nice meeting you, Tav. Name’s Gamzee, if you can remember that far back.”

It takes him a moment; you can see the gears work in his head and then he shakes his head a little, takes a step back, and he looks over you again. You can see his face change as he recognizes the parts of you that are still the same and you can feel a small, excited smile spread across your face.

“Gamzee?” He asks, incredulous.

“Yeah, it’s me, bro.” Your cheeks are starting to hurt from how big your smile’s getting. Finally, he looks up at you, that same-old, shit-eating grin right on his face like you remember, and you lock eyes with each other. A second later and you lunge for him. You knock him off his feet and you go down with a yell that turns into a laughing sort of crying and he wraps you up in big, strong arms and he squeezes you close. Someone bangs on your door and you hear Karkat’s voice all worried. He slams open the door and starts to yell when he sees you on the floor, wrapped up in Tavros’ arms.

“What the fuck.”

It takes a couple tries and a lot of sniffling to get something close to an explanation out and Karkat leaves you two alone. It takes even longer after he leaves for you to stop crying and to get off Tavros. He helps you up and the first thing you say once you’re on your feet is, “When the fuck did that happen, bro?” You gesture at his prosthetics and he shrugs.

“I guess it happened about a little over a, year ago? I’m still getting used to them, but I am much more, mobile on these than in, the wheelchair.” He explains that his dad found someone who was able to print out the prosthetics. He sits down and takes off the prosthetic to hand it to you. You look over it and pretend to know all that went into the design of it. He sees right through your ‘ah’s and ‘oh’s. He takes the leg back and asks about what you got into while he was gone. You talk about Karkat and about your art classes and the sculpture you made last semester.

“Bro, you’ve gotta see it. It’s standing up outside the art building and—“

“Oh, that thing? Yeah, I saw it last, year a couple times. I had to pass that, way to get to the music building.”

“Wait, you… motherfucker you’ve been here all this time?”

“Well, only for last year so, I wouldn’t say ‘all this time’.” He laughs and you think about that time you almost bumped into someone who spoke the same as he does. You wonder… but that might be a question for later. The RA’s shouting about a floor meeting and you have to get yourself up and out to meet everyone else. You hold out a hand to Tavros and he takes it with an excited grin. He goes out the door first and you’re so excited for this year. This year is gonna be motherfucking great and… oh wow, Tav’s ass is really nice.

“Oh no, he’s hot,” you whisper under your breath.

**Author's Note:**

> [Prompt](https://ldefix.tumblr.com/post/126237766238/what-do-you-do-without-power-for-12-hours-come) by Idefix.


End file.
